


Mercy

by rivendellrose



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Jealousy, Not Incest, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: The universe is hard, my love, and you, with your mercy and your pity and your qualms, you are soft. But don't worry. I am here now, and I will keep you safe.The Michael Burnham of this universe isn't the one that Philippa Georgiou lost. But she's still Michael Burnham, and that means she's hers.This diverges slightly from canon in that it posits that instead of having been Emperor Georgiou's adopted daughter, the Michael Burnham of the Mirror Universe was her consort. A similar shift in the Prime universe version of their relationship is also assumed.





	Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to [gaslightgallows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows) for beta-reading and encouragement.

Philippa Georgiou lay on her side, propped up on one elbow in the darkness, and watched the so-familiar sleeping figure at her side. She'd had trouble sleeping for years, since her Michael fell away from her, lost to boredom and curiosity and Gabriel's poisonous whispers. It was all right. In this universe, the night seemed to be the only time that everything wasn't too bright. It was a pleasure to be awake for a few of those long, dark, quiet hours, when no business or duty or need to uphold an illusion pressed upon them, and hold watch over her lover.

_The universe is hard, my love, and you, with your mercy and your pity and your qualms, you are soft. But don't worry. I am here now, and I will keep you safe._

Her own Michael had come to chafe at the bonds of love after five years as her consort, viewing the emperor's palace first as a gilded cage, then as a prize that should belong to her, younger and more dashing and defiant than the emperor she'd served and loved for years. All gratitude for plucking her from the ranks of the officers was forgotten. This one, though — this cool, calm creature, straight and steady as a sword, where her Michael had been all sharp edges and charming insouciance that cracked like a whip — she craved Philippa’s attention. Even when she wanted to hold back, horrified by some petty ideal of justice or inclusionism or equality, she couldn't resist leaning into Philippa's touch. She was drawn like a comet, like a moth to flame, and Philippa opened her arms each time, took her smooth, narrow curves in her embrace, and welcomed her home. 

There were always words, before and after, always arguments and speeches while the lights were on. This or that thing that she had done was wrong, so very wrong, and Michael could not continue to protect her forever — as if the teacher were now the student, the emperor now the servant, and Philippa smiled along and nodded from time to time when it seemed Michael needed that from her, and distracted her, once she'd run her course on the sanctity of life and the inherent worth of every sentient species.

"It must be as novel for you as it is for me," she teases, "lecturing me on right and wrong. If we were very like at all I can't imagine your Philippa accepted that in you any more than I would have taken it from my Michael."

The familiar sorrow wells in wide, dark eyes, and for a moment Philippa revels in just a touch of the cruelty this Michael sometimes accuses her of. It's not that she enjoys causing her lover pain, exactly — not the kind that isn't begged for, that doesn't come with an equally sharp pleasure — but there is something exquisite about seeing how much, even now, this beautiful creature grieves and yearns, and all, in a sense, for her. It's like attending her own funeral in secret, and watching the mourners tear their hair and beat their breasts, throw themselves wailing upon the corpse, screaming their love and loss to the skies. At times Philippa can't quite bring herself to resist it. 

"Philippa liked when I challenged her." Michael's expression is frank and more than a little disapproving. "She enjoyed intellectual debate, and she liked that I never spared her when I thought she was wrong about something."

And then, of course, there is the way these moments kindle a spark of jealousy, adding a burning, hot-cold spice to the overwhelming love Philippa feels for this young woman — how dare she prefer the other, that milksop copy?

"Is that so?" She clasps her hands around Michael's wrists, pushes her back against the wall. "She let you think yourself her equal. And you liked that?"

Her mouth opens, then closes. Philippa presses her knee between her legs. 

"You liked it. But you knew you would never truly be her equal. And you liked that better."

"No one was her equal."

Philippa smiles and lifts her thigh, rolling her hips against Michael's pelvis and leaning in so close her lips almost touch Michael's cheek. "Including me?"

Michael closes her eyes and tries not to arch back against her, but she's trembling with the effort. "No. You're — she was better than you. She didn't need to be cruel to have everyone's respect."

"But she is gone. Dead." Philippa transfers both of Michael's wrists to one hand and holds them above her as she bends down and unzips Michael's uniform down the center of her chest, until the tops of her breasts in her very practical brassiere are bared, and kisses her sternum. "Because you failed her." And then further, pushing aside the regulation blue and black and licking the tip of one soft peak. "Her most trusted and beloved... She's gone. And here I am." 

She blows lightly, and the nipple pebbles. "And you're here with me. I wonder what she would think of that."

That does it -- pushes Michael beyond her endurance, makes her fight. She twists her hands out of Philippa's grip easily, shoves her away... and then, Philippa can see it in her eyes, regrets that loss immediately and comes after her. It ought to be like a tigress taking an unruly kitten to task, fighting with this gentle, mild version of her Michael. But the beauty of her has always been that the same ferocity, the same fluidity in battle, is at the heart of her, too, just as it always was in Philippa's. There's pride, too, and wounded fury at the loss of the woman she loved, at being stuck, Philippa knows, with someone who, to this Michael, will always be a dark shadow of the brilliant, beloved captain she remembers.

That hurts. It also makes it easier, to throw Michael back against the bed, climb atop her, catch her throat in one hand and her right wrist tight in the other. Hold, just hard enough to feel the pulse racing beneath her fingers and see fear and anger rise as well as desire in her eyes.

To feel proud when Michael rolls them over with one fluid movement and pins Philippa beneath _her_ and twist their hands around so she's gripping Philippa's, holding her immobile as she was just held. 

"You don't have the right to talk about her."

Philippa smiles and arches her back, stretches luxuriantly under Michael's small weight. "Don't I? Who are you to tell _me_ what to do?"

"My Philippa taught me not to bow to tyrants."

"Oh? And is that what I am?"

The faintest smile of triumph touches Michael's lips. "Not anymore."

And there's the anger again, the righteous, wounded pride that, if their positions were reversed and her right hand free, would have made her slap the insolent brat and forget their play in making her regret her honesty. "And whose fault is that?" she snaps, no longer even close to teasing. 

The smugness washes from Michael's face.

"You took away my right to die as I should, as an emperor, my sword in my hand. You brought me here with you, and now you fuss that I don't follow your rules."

"I won't apologize for saving your life. Mercy isn't weakness."

It is, it always is in the end, and that's why Gabriel Lorca died on Philippa's sword, not at Michael's hand. But the girl wants to keep these last, pretty dreams that Philippa's copy spun for her and died for, and Philippa is more than content to dirty her hands to keep Michael's clean, if that makes her happy. If it keeps her safe until she learns the inevitable hard lessons on her own.

She pulls Michael down into a kiss that's gentle at first, and lets her think of it as an apology. She peels the uniform off her beautiful skin, flaying the officer away to reveal the woman, and holds her, smiling over her shoulder, as Michael undoes the buttons and hooks of her own outfit, the black and leather she's taken as her own, here, and kisses her throat and kneads her breast. When she rolls Michael onto her back and straddles her thighs, there are no complaints, this time, and Michael arches against her hand, nearly weeping with want. 

Philippa leans over her, kissing her hard, bringing her almost to the edge with her fingers, then pulling away with a taunting smile and taking her time, kissing and licking along Michael's sharp jaw and collarbone, breasts, stomach, and the jutting arc of her hipbones, down her lovely thighs and back up again before finishing her off with her mouth. Michael screams her name, and if she means the other one, well, she's not here to enjoy it, is she? Not here to see Michael, flushed and thoroughly satisfied, sprawl for a moment's rest on the dark blue sheets of her bed, then rise again, still hungry, and eager to return her emperor's favor.

She looks impossibly beautiful kneeling between Philippa's thighs on the bed, gazing up for approval at every moan and sharp cry, and even after they've both had their fill they keep on, time and again, just because they can. Because the time is brief, and Philippa can't stay aboard Discovery. Because they both want what they can't have anymore. Because next time might be different.

Later, Philippa ran a sleepy hand through Michael's hair and cupped her cheek, then her chin in her fingers.

 _You think yourself my savior. That you're responsible for me._ She stroked Michael's smooth, fragile throat. _Keep thinking that. As long as you do, you'll never give up on me. You'll be mine, and I'll keep you safe. This time, I'll get it all right, and you can rule at my side._


End file.
